Miss Eliza Boone's Statement to the Sheriff of Calhoun County
by RosieAnnieUSA
Summary: Two strangers answer the challenge from a local bully, with devastating results


It weren't my fault what happened. My Pa said later that really, weren't nobody to blame but the fool who pulled a gun. But like I told Pa, and told my ma, and told anybody else asked, same's I'm telling you now, everything just seemed to happen sudden-like, and happen all around me, without me doing nothing. It's like I was standing in the middle of a tornado, all the wind and the rain just whipping round me, and I wasn't part of anything that happened. But everyone knows, that ain't the whole truth.

Me and my Ma and my brother, Matthew, he's ten, we come into town to pick up some supplies at the mercantile. I didn't have to come to town, but I sure wanted to. Truth be told, I was hoping I'd have some time to see my friends, since it was summer, and we'd all been away from school and hadn't seen each other for a while. Pa says probably any 15-year-old girl would want to do the same, and that I shouldn't blame myself. I was just being a normal girl, and I was hoping to see my friends, and especially, maybe one or two of the nice boys I hadn't seen for too long, either.

There was one boy I didn't want to see, though, and that was Willie Ames. Oh, I like boys just fine, and I never much mind seeing them in school, or at dances, or on trips like this to town. Pa says it's normal for a girl to look at a boy, and I do like to look at boys. But Willie, he was different somehow. My Ma said he just seemed to find trouble, but my Pa said, Willie courted trouble like a man courted a woman. Instead of a wedding in his future, he said, Willie had a rope. Might as well send out engraved invitations now for the hanging and save everyone time and trouble later.

All I knew was, Willie made me feel funny, and not in a good way. I'm used to the boys looking at me; matter of fact, I kinda like it. But when Willie looked at me . . . well, I didn't like that at all, not one bit. He'd look at a girl, kind of stare, real hard, and maybe smile this little smile . . . you never could tell what he was thinking. One time, last year it was, I was at the mercantile with my folks, but standing off in a corner, looking at some doodad or other, and when I turned around, there was Willie, standing right in front of me, kinda boxing me, and there weren't nobody else close by. I was some flustered, but I said, "excuse me," and tried to walk around him, but he grabbed my arms, held me real tight, and pulled me close to him, and I said, Willie, that hurts, you let me go right now, but he didn't. He just said, "Miss Eliza, you ain't got nowhere to go that's better than where you are right now." And he shook me a little, and I was starting to get scared when Mr. Morrow, who works in the store, he come around back and saw us, and Willie just let me go and I ran out. No sir, I did not tell my Pa. But I made sure that I stayed with my friends whenever Willie was around.

Oh yes sir, you're wanting to know what happened yesterday. Well, like I was sayin', I was in the mercantile with my Ma and my brother, and I was waiting for my chance to get away and go see my friends. It was then that them two strangers come in. No, I didn't see them at first. Fact is, I wasn't paying much attention at all – I'm a daydreamer, Pa says - and I stepped back to look at the display, and I bumped into one of them. I stepped backwards into the dark-haired one in the black shirt, and I dropped what I was holding, I was so surprised. Well, he bent down and picked it up and handed it right back to me, and he said something like "pardon me, miss, is this yours?" I took the doodad and looked up at him, and he pushed his hat back on his head, and something inside me said "Oh My!" You never seen such big, dark eyes in your life, and thick eyelashes too. My heart just about stopped. I couldn't even say one word, and my Ma will tell you, that don't hardly happen. Then he smiled real slow and wide, dirty face and beard stubble and all, and he was so handsome, and I opened my mouth to talk but nothing come out.

My Ma walked over then, and she says, Oh Eliza, you are so careless, please forgive her, Mr? . . . Smith, he said, Joshua Smith, and Ma'am, there's nothing to forgive. Then he tipped his hat at both of us, and went to catch up with his friend, the one with curly blonde hair, and the friend, he was just smiling at him and me, but it was a nice smile, you know? They both had nice smiles. Not like Willie Ames.

My Ma grabbed my elbow and pulled me out the store. Eliza, can't I take you nowhere without you making puppy-dog eyes at men? When you gonna learn to recognize trouble when you see it? I said, Ma, he was real nice. My brother Matthew, he caught up with us then, and he said, look at the guns them two are wearing. They're gunslingers. Only gunslingers wear their holsters tied down, don't you know nothing? But all I was thinking about was them big brown eyes, and how no boy in our town had eyes like that.

Well, sir, that was when my Ma told me to sit down on the bench outside the store, where maybe I could keep out of trouble for two minutes, and stay put till she got back. And she'd have Matthew sit there with me to make sure each one of us watched the other, and that way maybe we'd both actually do what she told us without no backtalk for a change.

So we sat. At least, we sat for a couple minutes. Matthew had a dime novel in his pocket, and he pulled it out and started flippin' through the pages. Me, I just sat and watched the people going up and down the street, and thought about Mr. Smith, the man with the big brown eyes. No boy I ever knew could hold a candle to them deep dark eyes.

So, I guess I was kind of staring out to the street, not really paying attention – lost in my daydreams again, Pa would say - when I heard Matthew saying "give it back!" His voice kind of woke me up. I looked, and it was Willie Ames, and he had Matthew's dime novel. "Give it back!" Matthew said again. And he got up and tried to grab it out of Willie's hands, but Willie was taller and bigger, and he held it up high, saying "sure, take it!" and holding it way higher than Matthew could reach.

That's when I stood up, and I told him, you give that back to my brother right now! You know how it is with family. I tease my brother and give him a hard time, but it ain't right for someone to walk by and steal his book. So I was trying to grab it too, and then Willie throws it out in the street aways, and Matthew, he runs right into the street to get it. And he leaves me standing there with Willie Ames. And then Willie grabbed my elbow, real hard, and starts pulling me away with him, and he's saying, "Miss Eliza, we got some unfinished business between us." I told him, Willie, there ain't nothing between us, you better let me go right now. And I tried pulling away from him, but he just held me tighter. I told him he was hurting me, and he said, be peaceable and ain't nobody getting hurt.

There was all these people in the street, but nobody seemed to be seeing us, and I was saying, Willie, you leave me be, and then Matthew comes running up and he kicks Willie in the shins and tells him, you leave my sister be! Willie let me go, and then he pulls a gun out of his belt and he takes it and hits my brother in the head with the butt. And I seen Matthew fall down in the street, and I see his head is bloody, and I start to go to him, but Willie, he starts pulling me away on the sidewalk. Now I was starting to yell some, and I was gonna hit Willie, but he grabbed my arm and twisted it. I don't mind telling you, I was mad, and I was scared. He was a whole lot stronger than me.

Then I heard some man say, in this real deep voice, "take your hands off the young lady." And Willie, he stopped for a minute, and he looked, and I looked, and it was Mr. Smith, Brown Eyes, standing there. And his friend was standing right next to him. They weren't smilin' no more. They looked like they meant business.

Willie, he kind of laughed, and he said, Mister, don't you know better than to come between a man and his wife? You be minding your own business. And Mr. Smith, he smiled real slow again, but it wasn't a friendly smile like I'd seen in the store. Then he looked at me, and he said, is this your husband, miss? And his friend, the one with curly blonde hair, he moved and stood next to Mr. Smith, and he takes his right-hand glove off, and tucks it in his waistband.

I said, no, he is not my husband, he is a troublemaker named Willie Ames, and he wouldn't leave me alone when I told him to! That was when Willie says to me, oh, I'm happy to let you go. And he pulled my wrist real hard and he kind of threw me down on the sidewalk planks, and he kicked me into the street.

I can't tell you exactly what happened next. I only heard the gunshot, and I only heard later that it was Mr. Smith's friend who shot the hat off Willie Ames' head. I didn't see the hat fly off, but I heard Willie say some curse words, and I turned and looked just in time to see Willie pull his gun out of his waistband again. It all happened so fast, I hardly had time to blink from where I was in the street. But I saw Willie turn around and aim his gun quick-like, but Mr. Smith, he had his gun out faster, and he pulled the trigger faster. And I saw Willie get hit, it looked like it was right above his belt buckle, and he went flying backwards and then he was laying on the ground, too. I was pulling myself up, slow, 'cause I was aching and hurting, and I saw Willie turn his head a little to one side and kind of take a deep sigh. And then he blew out that sigh, and he didn't move no more.

Mr. Smith's friend came over to help me get up, but I couldn't seem to think straight. I saw the blood spreading out from underneath Willie. I was shaking hard and starting to cry. That's when Matthew, he come runnin' over to me, and there was blood running down the side of his head, and he threw his arms around me, and we hung onto each other. By then I kind of knew that people were coming from every which a way, talking to us, looking at Willie laying so still, but I was crying, and Matthew was crying, and I guess we was just happy Willie didn't hurt us worse'n he did. I looked up, and I saw Mr. Smith standing there, his gun still in his right hand, and him looking so pale. His friend walked over to stand right beside him, and he put his hand on Mr. Smith's shoulder, and he said something real quiet to Mr. Smith, but Mr. Smith, he didn't say nothin' back. And so they was just standing there, except now they were standing inside the tornado, and everything was happening around them.

And that's the way it happened. Willie Ames started it all. He hurt Matthew, and he was hurting me, and I don't know what might have happened if Mr. Smith and his friend hadn't been there. It's like my Pa said. Willie Ames was always inviting trouble. It just happened that on that one day, someone was there to accept his invitation.

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